 |
| Carrie and our kids Byron and Leili. |
In work and play I've lived a very physical life and now I'm paying the price. No regrets though. Medical professionals have twice repaired my right knee. Scalpel has been put to my lumbar and thoracic back in 2009 and again to my Lumbar in 2020. I also have new hips which left me with nerve damage to my legs, especially my calf muscles. A heart attack in 2011 gave me much to think about.
That last paragraph was a depressing one. Regardless I'm still moving and riding after turning 68 in December of 2021. After my heart attach in 2011 I weened myself off of meat with one exception...Sushi. For over a decade I've been a Sushi eating vegetarian.
I'm 6'1" and weight 180 pounds. I ride 200 to 300 miles a month and lift weights a couple times a week. I stretch everyday and my kids bought me a Theragun massage gun which is awesome for loosening up my legs. I take a short list of vitamins and supplements. I control my cholesterol with my vegetarian diet and 2.5mg statin. And then there is my lifelong affair with asthma. It's very mild and seasonal now but I still take an inhaler once a day. Growing up in a home full of cigarette and cigar smoke probably didn't help by lungs much.
I just laid out my medical history to show that shit happens and how one responds to it's determines the quality of life.
In 2009 Dana at Bent Up Cycles introduced me to recumbent trikes. His knowledge of recumbent trikes put me at ease with trying something new. My first trike was a Catrike Expedition. Since then I've owned a few different trikes.
My trikes keep me alive both physically and mentally. Keep moving...adapt.
As the surgeries piled up I put this list together so I wouldn't have to re-list all my surgeries every time I go to see a new doctor. I include it with the annoying forms you have to fill out on the first appointment. With the exception of a heart attack in 2011 while riding hard, everything else is structural repairs.
1980s Knee - right arthroscopic
1990s Knee - right arthroscopic...again
2008 Shoulder - right rotator cuff repair
2009 Back - L4, L5 Foraminotomy
2009 Back - T5, T6 Foraminotomy
2011 Heart - 2 stents LAD
2012 Hip - left arthroscopic
2012 Hip - right arthroscopic
2013 Hip - left replaced
2013 Hip - right replaced
2020 Back - L1 to L5 and S1 - Foraminotomy, partial
laminectomy, Discectomy, Coflex clip L4,L5
2020 Wrist - right carpal tunnel release
2020 Wrist - left Carpal tunnel release
2021 Shoulder - left rotator cuff repair and bicep tenodesis
CURRENTLY; Hip replacements have left me with nerve damage (neuropathy) in my feet and calfs and partial apathy to the medial head of the Gastrocnemius muscle in my calfs. On the positive side, the nerve damage hasn't gotten any worse over the years. With regular exercise, stretching and strengthening everything else that works I've been able to mitigate some of the worse effects of neuropathy.
__________________________
A quote taken from Oscar Wilde keeps playing in my head. He spend two years in prison for having a relationship with a man. Those two years were hard on him and he died not too long after his release from prison.
"I have got to make everything that has happened to me good for me...There is not a single degradation of the body which I must not try and make into a spiritualizing of the soul."
-Oscar Wilde
